Cruising the Internet from the hospital bed
Cruising the Internet from the hospital bed
In-room computers boost customer service
Patients at Baptist Health Systems in Jackson, MS, can rent a computer during their stay that allows them to access the Internet, read and send e-mail messages, view DVD movies, and play games.
Using the in-room computers, physicians and other clinicians will be able to refer patients to educational Web sites geared to their diagnoses and medications, says Bill Huff, president and founder of Jackson-based MediNet Rentals, which provides the service. Broad-based Internet access is provided through the hospital’s network or a DSL telephone connection, which allows phone conversations even when the computer is on-line.
Baptist Health Systems is the first in the country to offer this new bedside option, Huff says, but the company has distribution agreements for marketing the service in St. Louis and Detroit and ultimately plans to take it nationwide.
If hospitals so choose, they can hook their own Intranet or Web-based charting systems to the MediNet computers to allow easier accessibility for clinicians, says Steve Putman, the company’s vice president of marketing.
Although the hospital is not ready at present to offer "real-time discharges," in which patients review and OK charges before they leave, that function is also available from MediNet, Huff notes. "With 20,000 discharges [annually] in this hospital alone, that’s 20,000 hours of discharge time."
On-line discharge — which he says could clear up potential billing errors before they occur — could mean millions to the hospital’s bottom line, Huff says. "A day of aging on this hospital’s sales is a million and a half dollars."
The ability to take patients’ meal orders on-line — another possibility for the in-room computers — could remove the need for three full-time employees who now deliver and pick up menus, he points out. "Is that a wise way to spend limited hospital funds?"
"We have just scratched the surface," says Rick Caldwell, vice president and chief information officer at Baptist Health System. "The potential is incredible."
During the admission process, registrars screen patients to find likely candidates for the service, says Georgia Rice, admissions team leader. "If they’re interested, we tell them what the computer can do, and there’s a computer in the lobby for them to access and play with. That pretty much sells it, and then the patient asks us how to get it."
Computers are customized
If the patient is interested, he or she fills out a demographic form, listing hobbies and preferences, Rice says. "[The computer set-up] is customized for the patient." The registrar pages the MediNet technician, tells him that this patient is going to a room and is interested in having a computer, she adds. The technician goes to the room and tells the patient how much the service costs and how to use the computer.
"They pay for it by credit card or check, but the technician takes care of that," Rice notes. "Admitting is not involved in the money collection." The fee for the service is $19.95 a day, with a reduced rate of $10 for senior citizens on Medicare or Medicaid, Putman adds.
Response to the new computer service, for which trials began in February 2000, has been excellent, Rice says. "A lot of people are interested, and parents especially are happy to have it in their children’s rooms. It gives them something to do. Just a couple of weeks ago, a gentleman came in with his wife and wanted to keep in touch with his work. It was a benefit for him."
Patients who decide to use the service come from "across the board," Caldwell adds. "You would think it would be stratified, but it’s not really. A lot of times the family member is the primary user."
Eventually, the hospital plans to have computers allocated to every patient room, and after the patient gets to the room, have someone come by to let them know about the service, he says. "We would make them available just like we do with televisions now."
Built for my grandmother’
MediNet’s service is filtered to eliminate pornography and other material that might be objectionable to patients, and it has a user-friendly interface, says Putman. "It’s built for my grandmother. The [user] clicks on one icon and goes to the game menu, clicks on another and goes to the Internet. A search is not as complicated as on most search engines.
"The really nice thing about the Internet capability," Putnam adds, "is that we go to the physicians and say, What are your favorite links for patient resources?’ When the patient identifies who his physician is, the sites associated with that physician are loaded on. While in the room with the patient, the physician can click on those sites and say, Look at this.’"
Information imparted to patients during physician rounds — which can be forgotten or misunderstood — now can be e-mailed to the patient, he points out. In addition to having a private e-mail address at the hospital, the patient also can access e-mail from any other Internet server, Putnam says.
Patient rooms are converted
Many hospitals have converted some of their patient rooms into "charting rooms" for computer data entry, Huff points out. "There is a significant liability in trying to do charting the way it’s done in most hospitals," he says. "The nurse goes into the patient’s room with a clipboard and writes down information, then goes down the hall to the charting room and types it into the computer.
"Since this is not real time,’" Huff adds, "someone accessing the patient’s chart wouldn’t have the latest information. We can give the nurse the tool of bedside charting."
The idea for the "patient portal" in hospital rooms came to Huff while he was awaiting the birth of his son, he says. "My wife was in for a cesarean, so that meant four or five days in the hospital. I’m very excited, but I know she’ll be asleep half the time, and the baby will be in the nursery. I thought about all the other people in hospitals in the same situation."
His idea came about, Huff says, as he was looking at the actual needs of the patient as opposed to trying to save money for the health care industry. "This lets people have back some of the control they lose when they go into the hospital." However, MediNet has developed a couple of ways that hospitals and patients can benefit financially from the service, he adds.
His premise was that bringing computer technology into the patient’s room would be similar to what happened 30 or 40 years ago when telephones were brought into individual patient rooms, Huff says. "That was a time when the hospital that chose to have telephones in the room had a competitive advantage."
MediNet offers one company within each industry — one maker of infant formula, for example, or one pharmaceutical company that makes a particular heart medicine — an opportunity to be a "corporate sponsor" of the computer service, Huff adds. That sponsorship would allow those companies to put a specific link on the computers in the rooms of obstetrical or cardiac patients that might be interested in their products, he says.
There also is a plan to give patients and hospitals a way to build a fund that would not only cover the cost of the in-room computer service, but would go toward the actual cost of the patient’s care, Huff says.
[Editor’s note: For more information on MediNet Rentals, call Steve Putman, vice president of marketing, at (888) 353-6331.]
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.